


Of Mash Notes And Hope For Our Kind

by Tooti_Fruity



Series: Cacophony and Entropy and Apathy In NYC [2]
Category: Futurama
Genre: Angst, Dysfunctional Family, F/F, Homophobic Slurs, Ie a character implies that ovaries equal girl, M/M, Seriously guys, Slight transphobic, domestic violence/child abuse, frenderweek2017, heavy angst guys, this one is sad af
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-14 19:46:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11790174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tooti_Fruity/pseuds/Tooti_Fruity
Summary: They were hidden so well, stuffed in a box at the back of his closet. Fry didn't know how his parents found them.Or, how Fry ended up at Bender's apartment on that July night.





	Of Mash Notes And Hope For Our Kind

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first one from Fry's POV; this is also my first fic where Bender doesn't appear at all. Please read, review, and enjoy my lovelies!

It started out simple enough; Bender, despite how jealous he could be without even meaning to, was the one to suggest that Fry and him get beards.

_“You know I hate growing out facial hair, Bender!” Bender buried his face in his hands._

_“Good lord, you’re going to be the death of me,”_

Once Fry had properly figured out what Bender meant (i.e. fake girlfriends), he had suggested they just use Leela and Amy, to which Bender let out a bark of laughter and said there was NO WAY anyone would buy him with Amy, or god forbid, _Leela_ , and it was settled that he would call in a favor from a friend at his job.

So fast forward about three weeks, and Bender had introduced Fry to a nice girl with hard brown eyes and thick dreadlocks. The mischievous gleam in her eyes almost reminded him of Bender, and it was then that Fry knew they were going to be good friends.

_“I’m Kelly Jane Parson. Call me Kelly,” she had said, winking as she shook his hand firmly. Fry grinned._

_“Phil J Fry. Call me Fry. What hair style is that?” he asked. She laughed._

_“They’re dreadlocks. My mother taught me how to do them; me and Amber rock ‘em together,” Fry smiled._

_“They’re so cool! Did you really do them yourself?”_

_Kelly opted not to respond, only shaking her head good naturedly._

_“You and me? I think we’re gonna get along just fine, white boy. So, Fry…are you ready to be the ultimate ambiguously gay duo?” she asked. Fry smirked._

_“Hell yeah,”_

_***********************_

How had everything gone so wrong?

It was so easy at first; Kelly was fun to be around. She smoked like a chimney and cursed like a sailor, she knew her way around a tool box, and she was a tried and true grease monkey. She could keep up with Bender’s sharp wit, and her laughter was loud and confident and intensely projected the undeniable truth; when Kelly Parson walked in a room, all eyes would inevitably end up on her, one way or the other.

Bender had taken on Kelly’s girlfriend, a shy woman called Amber Corden, as his ‘girlfriend’, and the group regularly triple dated with Leela and Amy. They’d hit up the arcade or a pizza parlor or go skipping rocks, and sometimes, the pairs would even be able to split up and be with one another without the threat of being caught.

***********************

_“I really love her,” Kelly had murmured one night by the Hudson Bay. He glanced over at her._

_“What?”_

_“Amber. I love her. And I want to be with her forever,” She fell silent, gazing introspectively up at the stars._

_“Well, maybe she really loves you too,” Fry tried. She laughed bitterly._

_“No, it’s not that. I know she does; it’s our families. My parents don’t give a shit who I fuck or date or marry. But Amber’s got pretty rich parents, and they want her to marry an actor or a politician or a lawyer, ditch her big mean dyke girlfriend; play the part of a trophy wife forever, until death do them part,” She sighed softly. Fry patted her shoulder sympathetically._

_“That’s rough buddy,” he muttered. She gazed at him, her eyes a little glassy._

_“Do you…think there’s hope? For people like us?” she asked. He shrugged and looked away._

_He tried not to think about how much she looked like Bender in that moment._

***********************

Fry hadn’t been home in a little while; he had opted to spend the afternoon with Leela, listening to her gush about her underclassman girlfriend, Amy, and helping her pick out the right nail polish for her date that night. He felt comfortable here, laying sprawled out on Leela’s purple canopy bed and watching her pick up nail polishes, stare at them intently, and then inevitably toss them to the side when she figured out a reason not to choose it.

“I think the blue looks nice…Fry, what do you think?” she asked, her voice distracted as she rustled around for the particular shade of baby blue she wanted.

“Oh, it’s really pretty,” he paused, and as soon as she produced a small baby blue bottle, he nodded. “That one! It makes you pop,”

She laughed, light and free, and slid the small bottle into the pocket of her stretch pants.

“I can always count on you,” she teased. Fry beamed.

He could see why he loved her, once; she really was the ideal woman. He still remembered meeting her at summer camp, back when her name was Satish, and she was the spitting image of young prepubescent awkwardness, sharing a bunkbed at sleep away camp with Fry for three years. It was in the middle of the week, a humid, sticky night, the second year they spent together, when a ten year old Fry had been jostled from a deep sleep and rested his eyes on a nervous, panicked Satish.

***********************

_“Satish?” he mumbled sleepily. He hesitated, before motioning for Fry to climb down from the top bunk._

_“Phil, there’s something I want to tell you. But you can’t tell anyone!” he whispered. Fry nodded solemnly; he would never think of betraying his friend._

_Satish fidgeted, his eyes darting around the room, before grabbing Fry by the wrist and leading him out of the room. They creeped out of the decrepit cabin, taking care to avoid the step they knew squeaked, and before long, they had finally reached the bottom of the dusty earthen floor surrounding the cabin._

_“Okay, so…I’m. Um-” Satish threw his hands up, groaning. “Darn it! Why is this so hard?” he whispered. He stood only for a moment longer before plopping down on the stoop of the cabin and burying his face in his hands._

_“Oh, hey, c’mon, ‘Tish. Nothing could ever make me think badly about you; you’re great! You can climb the rocks, and you make great smores, and you always win camp games. You’re the best guy here!” he encouraged._

_Satish’s head snapped up, his eyes wide and miserable, before finally whispering , in a small voice,_

_“But…what if I’m not a boy?”_

_Fry’s mouth fell open._

_“Not-I, uh, how does that, um…” Satish shook his-her?-head._

_“I don’t know, I’ve just always felt like a girl inside. I’ve never felt like I’m a boy, ever,” he insisted._

_Fry fell silent, digesting this information. If Satish wasn’t a boy-if he didn’t even know his own friend’s a girl-then what else didn’t he know? Was Satish a spy? Or a ninja? Did he-oh, she, that might take a bit of getting used to…_

_He finally looked at back at him._

_“Hi. I’m Phil. What’s your name?” he finally asked. Satish gave him a questioning look, but hesitantly replied,_

_“Leela,” Fry smiled warmly._

_“Nice to meet you Leela; welcome to camp,”_

_Her lips curled into watery, faint smile, and in a split second, she had throw her arms around his neck. He quickly reciprocated the hug._

_They didn’t need to say anything else; Fry had heard her loud and clear._

***********************

The phone rang on Leela’s dresser rang; Fry moved to pick it up, out of habit, but she beat him to it, putting it to her ear.

“Turanga residence, this is Leela speaking,” she said.

A pause.

“Oh…Yancy, I’m-hold on, he’s in the bathroom. Yes, I’ll tell him right away. Okay. Okay, bye,”

She returned the phone to its mount and turned to meet Fry’s questioning face with a grimace.

“It was Yancy. He said you needed to come home, right away-serious stuff,” Fry nodded, wordlessly moving to gather his things and making the short trek from her room to the front door, Leela in tow. He turned and gave her a week smile.

“Well, I guess this is goodbye. I’ll try to stop in Friday, yeah?” She patted his back.

“Sounds good. See you then?”

“See you then,” he confirmed.

***********************

The walk home was uncomfortable, to say the least. Fry had spent most of his life learning how to do damage control with his parents. He ran over the possibilities of what might’ve set them off this time; he didn’t do the dishes, he broke something, he forgot to turn in his essay on the Gilded Age for-oh, he should’ve done that today-he said something rude to a family friend without meaning to, he didn’t clean his room; the list went on, and with every subsequent hypothetical for how he had screwed up this time, the pit in his stomach grew more and more unbearable.

_What if they found-_

_No_. They couldn’t have; he had been careful, more than careful, putting years of learning how to hide things from them to use. He was certain that even a SWAT team with Bloodhounds on steroids couldn’t find it.

As his house crept into view, he suppressed the ache settling in his belly, counting the steps as he approached the front door and attempting to breathe in time with them. In through the nose, out through the mouth, Leela always said; she was good with this stuff. She knew how to handle him when he got like this-

The front door.

Taking a final gulp of air in, Fry produced his key from his jacket pocket and unlocked both locks, turning the knobs immediately after.

_Here goes nothing._

He was surprised to find that his parents and Yancy were no where to be seen; he was alone. The foyer was unlit, and the living room light was off, lit only by the cracked lamp on the table and the TV, left on and unattended and recounting a play in a Giants’ game his mother had likely been watching. He took cautious steps across the floor and up the stairs, careful to watch his step over his backpack and avoid the sixth step, as it always creaked.

As he approached the top, his heart dropped into the pit of his stomach with a thud; he could here angry whispering and the sounds of things in his room being pushed over and thrown. He could see Yancy sitting on the floor adjacent to the closed room, knees pulled up and face buried in his own hands.

“Yancy?” he whispered. His brother’s head shot up.

“Phil,” he hissed. “Phil, you fucked up so fucking bad,”

“I’m, wait, hold on, _what happened_?” Yancy shook his head, almost manically.

“You-you just couldn’t keep it somewhere safe, could you? Had to-had to hide it somewhere they’d find it,” Fry’s chest constricted.

“They…Yancy, what did they find?” he breathed. Yancy let out a puff of what could have been laughter, had he not been so distraught, bracing his arms on the wall behind him and standing.

“Just…go. I’m not getting involved, not on this. I can only save your skin so often, Phil, and I’m not touching this one with a fucking ten foot pole,” he muttered, bowing his head and shoving past him.

Fry swallowed hard; no sense in delaying it. Better to face this clusterfuck head on.

He stood in front of the door, turned the knob, arm tensing, and opened it cautiously.

His mother was sitting on his unmade bed, he face buried in her own hands, a parody of Yancy only moments ago, and his father whipped around, clutching a damaged shoe box, stray papers flying with his motion, in his brawny palms. Red face, he snarled,

“What the fuck is this?”

It was…he couldn’t have…he hid them so well! He had a secret place, buried in the back of his closet, under piles of dirty clothes, action figures, and old binders from last school year. He couldn’t imagine how they found them-

“Love letters!” he roared.

***********************

_It had started out simple enough; Bender, all red faced and head bowed, had shuffled up to him on an unimportant Monday morning, between third and fourth period. Fry had just collected his Spanish I textbook, and a comic to hide inside of it to occupy him for most of the period, and he was just about to close his mostly barren locker, when calloused, tan hands had thrust a piece of wrinkled notebook paper at him. He had given him a wry smile._

_“Well hello to you to,” he had drawled. Bender had given him a withering look._

_“Just take it, stupid,” he mumbled, shifting from foot to foot nervously. Fry had quirked a brow in question, but he had grabbed it nonetheless. “And read it when you’re alone!”_

_Then, Bender had taken off, ducking around him and speeding away. He had rounded the corner within five seconds, leaving Fry alone in the crowded hallway._

_Shrugging, Fry slid the sheet between the pages of his textbook, closed his locker, and hurried to Spanish._

***********************

“You’ve been-you’ve-you’re a faggot!” his father spit, gesturing wildly, spilling papers everywhere. Fry could only stand there, frozen, as his father spit obscenities.

“Now Yancy,” his mother murmured. “It not as if it’s a problem we can’t fix,” He wheeled on her, face twisted into an ugly snarl.

“You stay the hell out of this! I always knew you were too soft on him! If you didn’t insist on babying him, maybe he wouldn’t have turned out a glitter flingin’, rainbow spittin’ fairy, polluting our home with his-and you!“ he spat, advancing on Fry in two easy steps.

Yancy Sr. was not a terribly tall man; while both Fry and Yancy Jr. had been gifted his height, he was still a solid three inches shorter than his youngest son. And yet, he had never looked taller, spitting fire and slurs like a brazen bull, his paternal instincts boiling alive within the cask of his rage. Fry flinched away, but he already had him, shoving and pinning him to the wall by the door.

“You tell me who the hell this-who is he?! Who is the faggot who turned my son-I’ll kill him!” he screamed.

“Don’t! I didn’t-how did you-where-” he quivered. Yancy Sr. loosened his grip taking a miniscule step back, his bark of laughter painted with malice.

“You think I couldn’t tell? You think I didn’t know? I raised you, boy, I can smell it on you from a mile away-I always-you were just-” His fury had rendered him utterly incoherent. It was Fry’s mother who spoke up, filling in the blanks.

“We saw them at the mall, the girl you were…well, the girl you were pretending to see. She was…with someone. A girl. They were…” And Fry had already filled in the blanks from the way her face scrunched up in disgust.

“Amber,” he whispered, to no one in particular.

They must’ve been on a date, Kelly and Amber; they had probably gone to The Cat Scratch, it was their favorite place in the mall. And they had probably been sharing a churro or a plate of fries or some nachos, holding hands. And it was probably Amber who went in for the kill, pressing her chapped lips to his her flushed girlfriend’s, laughing into her mouth, the pair blind to the hateful gaze on them, to the whole world outside of each other. Amy had always joked how gross they could be when they were in public, that they could give him and Bender a run for their money-

“…and we came home straight away, when we saw them…kiss. And your father insisted that we search your room,” she finished. His dad had stepped back, shaking his head.

“Damn right I did! And it’s a good thing too; I knew you’d have something like this, you fairies are all the same-” he spluttered.

The thing that hurt the most was how his dad talked like he didn’t even know him, like he had just happened on a Pride parade while taking a walk through central park and seen a stranger sporting leather chaps and throwing glitter. He was acting like Fry was no different from the men he scorned and mocked over dinner, who he laughed at when they were jumped, who he said should be put under quarantine so they wouldn’t “spread their disease”. He looked at Fry, his own son, like he had never even met him.

“I’m still your son,” he croaked, throat drier than sand. His father glared at him, chest heaving, but having significantly calmed.

“Did you like it?” he hissed. Fry furrowed his brow.

“Did I-what?” he asked.

“Did you like taking his dick? Getting fucked by another man, like a goddamn woman-might as well call you Jane fucking Doe now, ‘cuz apparently you’ve sprouted a pair of damn ovaries,” Fry licked his lips, shaking his head.

“Don’t say that,” he whispered. His father glared at him. His mother had pursed her lips like she had swallowed an entire lemon.

“Wanna say that again, boy?” he snapped. Fry met his eyes.

“I’m not a girl. And I, I love him,” His father seethed.

“You might as well be! Fagging it up with-it’s him isn’t it? That fucking-the boy you brought to dinner last fall. No wonder he got so mad when I told you to stop acting like a damn nutcase, he probably didn’t want to fuck you with those ugly scratches you give yourself-”

“Don’t-don’t you-don’t say that! He’s-I won’t let you-”

“Let me what?” he barked. “Let me call it what it is? My own son, fagging it up, taking it from a fuckin-“

“Stop it!” he screamed. And his father began ripping up the letters, tearing them apart in stacks, dozens of memories, hours of affection penned in chicken scratch and smudged graphite, from the love of his life, gone in mere seconds. “Don’t, please!” he wailed, lunging forward, desperate to save something, any one of the papers.

It came in three quick strokes, his fathers meaty palm clapping across his cheek. The impact of the actual hit was never quite as bad as the dull ache in his heart, Fry thought, the sting of rejection fresh and red hot. He fell back on his ass, bumping his head on his old dresser, and it was then his mother finally intervened.

“That is _enough_!” she screamed. “Yancy, put those down. Philip, you-” And she met his eyes, swallowing hard. “You need to go. We are very disappointed in you, and I will not have this…sickness in my house. You aren’t to come back until you’re willing to let us help you,”

His jaw went slack.

“You…you don’t mean that,” he rasped. She closed her eyes, steeling herself.

“I do. Get your shit and get out. You have fifteen minutes, and then I want you gone,” she snapped. “Yancy, bedroom, now,” His father seethed.

“Margret, he-” Her glare silenced him.

He sighed.

“Fine,” he grumbled, shoving past his wife and out the door, slamming it hard enough to make the furniture rattle. His mother squeezed her eyes shut, clenching her jaw and taking a deep breath, before looking at him, boring through him with her glare.

“Please don’t-” he whispered, his eyes watery. She shook her head sadly.

“Phil. You need to go. You can’t expect me to-damnit,” she hissed, falling back on his twin bed. “Why do you always make things so hard on me? All I wanted was a son who was normal. You didn’t have to be smart, or good looking, or successful; all I wanted was average. Like your brother. Why can’t you just be like him, Phil?” She gazed up at him, eyes rimmed red and voice spiteful.

And there it was. It didn’t matter how much his father berated him, called him a retard, knocked him around or told him he was a good for nothing bum-one hateful comment from her was all it took to hurt him more, because he knew she meant it wholeheartedly. He shook his head.

“I’m…gonna pack. Can I be alone?” he asked. She nodded, almost robotically, lumbering to her feet and brushing past him. As she turned the rusted knob and pulled the creaking door open, she gave him a blank look.

“I’ll come get you when it’s time,” she whispered. He gave a nod of approval, and as she stared at him, maybe for the last time, something in her expression made him think, for a split second, that she might hug him or try and comfort him. But he must’ve imagined it, because that wasn’t who she was, and it was wistful thinking because she was out the door in the next moment.

***********************

_It really was a sweet letter; Bender was no wordsmith, and he tended to be a bit repetitive when he wrote things down, and there were smudges where he had attempted to erase something one too many times and ended up leaving a stain, but it was genuine and kind and so very Bender that Fry didn’t mind so much._

_“You really are a poet,” Fry mused, having approached Bender after the last bell of the day rang. He seemed to nearly jump out of his skin and whipped around, his look sour._

_“Stop making fun of me, asshole,” he snapped. Fry gave a small laugh._

_“I’m not. I appreciate it. It made me feel all…warm and shit inside,” He shuffled awkwardly, foot to foot, as Bender gave him a calculating look._

_“I don’t suppose you would want another…note. Anytime soon?” he asked cautiously. Fry broke into a wide-mouthed smile._

_“I’d love that!” he said, beaming and letting out a tiny yelp as Bender pulled him into a secluded alcove off the main hall._

_Bender kissed like he talked; loud, and rough, and with his mouth wide open, and his hand was warm on the back of Fry’s neck as he smashed their mouths together and slid his palm flat into Fry’s back pocket. And when he finally pulled away, his lightly freckled skin was flushed and a bit embarrassed as he gazed up at him._

_“I…feel…somewhat warmly towards you,” he muttered shyly. Fry smiled, tilting Bender’s chin up with one hand._

_“I love you, too, Bender,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth._

***********************

The second his house was out of view, it felt like a ton of bricks had been dropped on him, and the dam broke; it started with hiccups and gasps, and within seconds, he was hunched over and crying hysterically. He leaned on his small suitcase, and when he found it did little to support his weight, he sat down hard on the curb and wrapped his arms around his knees, burying his face in-between.

Fry had managed to gather a decent amount of his things; he had some of his clothes, his Atari system, some of his favorite comic books and games, some toiletries, all the cash he had hidden in the jar at the back of his closet, the few surviving love letters from Bender. He had no idea where he might go; it was past 10 pm on a Thursday night, and he had no one he knew of that was in a position to take him in. Amy’s parents would never let him stay, with how old fashioned they were, and living with Leela might just be too awkward, so much that he prayed it wouldn’t come to that. He grimaced as he realized there was only one place left to turn, only one person who might understand and be able to give him what he needed.

Bender.

He glanced at the street sign, attempting to remember the path to Bender’s apartment from his own street, and set off in what he hoped was the right direction.

***********************

_“Do you…think there’s hope? For people like us?”_

_“…”_

_“Fry?”_

_“I don’t know.”_

**Author's Note:**

> I missed angst week by about four hours; sorry guys! :'(
> 
> Come join our Discord, it's barrels of fun!
> 
> https://discord.gg/HSV6DCU


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